


Christmas Ghost

by jenna_thorn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-04
Updated: 2005-01-04
Packaged: 2018-07-28 18:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7651057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenna_thorn/pseuds/jenna_thorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ravenclaw's Grey Lady</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Ghost

White is a mix of all colors.

And grey is white tinted with grief.

She knows she is called aloof. The children of her own house claim she simply rises above petty daily concerns, but in fact, she has never mastered being present; she lacks the others' ability to be wholly in the here and now. The voices of the children mix into an ocean of sound, waves of inharmonious music, teeming with the flashing scales of each fish-bright silver speaker. Their faces, hair and auras spin into a kaleidoscope of color, scattering light and color like frayed threads, like stained glass joined by the lead that separates panes. She must untangle them carefully.

Like the children, the season pass in a blur of color and light, fall shimmering into summer, interrupted by saplings and snowfall. Pumpkins are bedecked with red ribbons and daffodils crown falling leaves. She longs for wool and a fox stole at Midsummer and feels new grass under her bare feet on Hogmany. The seasons, the years, and the students flicker behind her eyes and slide through her fingers like sparkling sand. If she does not pick out one from another, if she does not allow herself to fill her heart, she can never again be hollowed by loss.

Despite herself, she remembers moments, dear Sir Nicholas gloating over the youngest Seeker in a century and the Baron's silent glower in return. Seeing the squid for the first time, startled by its fluid elegance, or watching a confluence of stars studied amidst a gaggle of Astronomy students and her shock on recognizing one of those students years later, teaching on the same Tower. And now, she floats nose to glittering facet of a single star, one of many, strung diamonds on an evergreen bough. Startled by her sudden sense of clarity she glances to the floor and the line of faces at the tables below her stretches into history, becoming mothers, fathers, the badges on their robes a constant that brings no comfort. 

And she knows it will all happen again.


End file.
